Prep football coaches look for improvement in Week 2

Thursday

Aug 28, 2014 at 9:23 AM

ASHEBORO — If the high school football season were a term paper, Week 1 would be the first draft. This week, the coaches and players get to go back and make corrections, edit some things and see if they can get an "A" — or, in this case, a "W."

ASHEBORO — If the high school football season were a term paper, Week 1 would be the first draft. This week, the coaches and players get to go back and make corrections, edit some things and see if they can get an "A" — or, in this case, a "W."

The Blue Comets nabbed a 38-6 win at Wildcats Stadium and will be on the road for the next two weeks. Tonight, Asheboro travels to play the Bison, who edged archrival HP Andrews 26-25 last week.

"It’s tough; it’s draining," Blue Comets coach Owen George said. "We know we aren’t playing in front of a home crowd for a month.

"High Point Central has seven or eight starters back on defense. They have an outside linebacker who gave us fits last year.

They graduated their top two wide receivers, but they still have their dual-threat quarterback. We have to contain him and mix things up on defense. We have to play a near-perfect game."

Last week’s loss to Asheboro took its toll on the Wildcats. Eastern Randolph had half of its starters out of Monday’s practice. Coach Seth Baxter is trying to help his players put it in perspective.

"It’s still just one game," he said. "The biggest thing for me was, if we execute a few things we were supposed to, it would have made things interesting.

"I didn’t see the fight I wanted to see. When you get knocked down, you’ve got to step up and make the next play and rally around each other. I didn’t see the whole group come together."

Now, ER faces another rival in the Cougars — a close rival.

"My best friend works over there; I’ve worked over there," Baxter said. "(Carter) Huffman and (Josh) Brennan run as hard as two kids can run. They play every play like it’s their last. On defense, they do a good job swarming the ball. We have our work cut out for us again."

Despite being banged up starting quarterback Corey Newby and starting running back Jaron Letterlough are expected to play — though the latter didn’t practice until Wednesday. Starting wide receiver Jordan Watt will miss today’s game with a concussion.

The Cougars played neck-and-neck with the Tigers last week until RHS scored 21 points in the fourth quarter for a 42-21 win.

"We’ve had a great week of practice," SWR coach Danny Akins said. "We’ve been working on being more disciplined. We had too many penalties and too many turnovers.

"We’ve had a good week of practice," Handy said. "It’s our first home game, so we’re busy. It’s always special to play in that stadium. It’s a great environment, it’s electrifying."

In North Stanly, Randleman sees a team that won nine games last season and opened with a 26-24 win over Central Academy last Friday. The Comets return Antonio Williams, who rushed for more than 2,000 yards last season as a sophomore.

The Patriots may have won just two games last season, but they started off the 2014 season on the right foot with a 28-27 win over Jordan-Matthews.

"It’s a lot easier to practice after a win," first-year coach Danny Martin said. "The temperatures have been great. Injury-wise we didn’t lose anybody.

"We were so young last year; we lacked confidence. The guys are starting to buy into what we’re doing. I tell them not to worry about wins, just play hard every play and good things happen. That’s what we saw last week."

Providence Grove hosts an East Davidson team that grabbed a 34-0 win over South Davidson last week.

"They’re very good and well-coached," Martin said. "They lost a lot of seniors from last year, but they return a lot of linemen. Their line is huge."

The Warriors are coming off a big 21-19 win over Bartlett Yancey.

"Any time you come away with a win and school starts, it’s a good feeling," Wheatmore coach Jason Bradley said. "We haven’t missed a beat. Our kids have put in a lot of work this week."

The Warriors host a Central Davidson squad that was shut out 27-0 by West Stokes last week.

"They want to pound the ball at you and turn it into a very physical football game," Bradley said of the Spartans. "Their average lineman is anywhere from 250 to over 300 pounds. Our kids are going to have to endure a beating."

Last year, the Bulldogs started the season with three straight wins. The streak didn’t return this season as THS fell 22-12 at North Moore last week.

"We saw a ton of mistakes — people lining up wrong, people not doing their jobs," Bulldogs coach Clayton Trivett said. "That was about the worst we could have played. I don’t know if it was the long bus ride down there. Mentally, we weren’t into the game until the second half when we decided we wanted to play."

Tonight, Trinity looks to bounce back at home against Bishop McGuinness, which lost 27-13 to the Community School of Davidson last week.